Samsung Refrigerator Review – RSG257AARS

Over the past few years, Samsung (like LG) has been making a huge push into the U.S. refrigeration market. By setting up special deals with big-box retailers like Best Buy and Brandsmart, they have effectively gobbled up a good deal of the market share that manufacturers like GE, Whirlpool and Kitchenaid once enjoyed. The prices are near unbeatable and the refrigerators are more and more looking the part of seriously well-built products.

This Samsung 36” side-by-side unit is their most expensive model, but in our opinion it is the only one worth reviewing here. The RSG257AARS is their latest design and fixes many of the (myriad of) problems of previous Samsung refrigerators. Many were plagued with condenser fan issues, had a hard time holding temperature, and many customers complained they were just plain noisy.

The new Samsung refrigerator has been improved upon in almost every way. This new Energy Star compliant 24 cu. ft. refrigerator uses Samsung’s MultiFlow cooling system which offers vents at every shelf level to ensure even cooling throughout the fridge. This helps the refrigerator to quickly restore temperature after the door is opened and closed. Both the fridge and freezer have “Power” options which speed up the cooling process for a small period of time.

Samsung’s Twin Cooling Plus System is designed to help separate the air between the fridge and freezer, keeping the freezer air dryer and the refrigerators humidity at an ideal 75% to keep fruits and vegetables fresh. For a refrigerator at this price point, the cooling system works well and keeps the temperature steady. It has an external ice and water dispenser with an LCD readout for the refrigeration functions. The water is purified via an inline water filter.

The interior of this unit is visually beautiful, with a long white channel of light running down the center of the back of the unit. The crisper drawers in the refrigerator are deep and plentiful and there is a built-in wine rack for storing your vino. Unfortunately, there are a few things to grip about in this interior as well.

Those deep drawers I just mentioned – well, they don’t open all the way. Scratch that, they barely open at all. For some reason these drawers are only designed to open a little more than half-way making large items – like eggplant, winter squash, etc. – extremely difficult to fish out. There are a few other points of contention worth noting: the ice maker, while it does indeed make ice, works at a snails pace. Many customer complain that if they have just a few people over they immediately run out of ice, and getting it to make more is painfully slow. The refrigerator shelving has limited adjustment, leaving your options for storing large items, like a gallon of milk or juice, limited.

Flaws aside, this is a huge improvement over previous generations and shows that this Korean manufacturer is heading in the right direction. And lets face it, no fridge is perfect. This unit sells for around $2,100 currently.

Pros: Visually beautiful interior, exterior LCD read-out, very quiet operation.

Cons: Crisper drawers don’t open fully, shelf adjustment limited, ice maker is too slow